However, if you’re going to buy individual stocks, you’ll need to research and analyze them, not blindly buy the best performers. That requires a lot of time and energy, and few people want to spend those precious resources. Instead, it may be easier to buy a diversified index fund, such as one based on the S&P 500 index, which has returned 10 percent on average over time. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site.
Coca-Cola (the drink) was invented in 1886, a decade before the creation of the Dow. Coca-Cola (the stock) made a brief appearance as a component of the industrial average in the 1930s. Shares were added back to the Dow in 1987, and they’ve remained a stalwart member ever since. Like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola (the company) is adding everything from bottled water to fruit juices to sports drinks to its product lineup to make up for slowing soda sales. Unlike PepsiCo, Coca-Cola doesn’t have the equivalent of Pepsi’s Frito-Lay snack business to offset slumping soda sales.
- The company was formed in 1987 via the merger of fashion house Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy.
- Over the last 35 years alone, amid cycles of oil booms and oil busts, the company has increased its dividend payment at an average annual rate of 6.3%.
- From 1928 to 2021, treasury bonds rose in 76 of those years while stocks rose in 69.
- In 1975, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to start a computer company with childhood friend Paul Allen.
- By the late 1950s it was the most popular brand of gasoline and one of the earliest sponsors of the nascent television industry.
- Nevertheless, as more goods were transported, Old Dominion’s income grew.
We’ll be looking at seven different stocks and explaining their performance throughout their lifetime in the stock market. JPMorgan initiates coverage on Post Holdings (POST) with an overweight rating and $100-per-share price target. The bank says the maker of cereal and pet foods generates strong cash flow that could help it reduce debt and buy back stock over the next two years. KeyBanc raises its price target on Club name Palo Alto Networks (PANW) to $315 a share, up from $300, while maintaining an overweight rating on the stock. The firm cites the cyber company’s ability to be a “long-term consolidator of security.”
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Best S&P 500 stocks for dividend growth
Warren Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile manufacturer, in the early 1960s. As it quickly became clear that U.S. textile manufacturing questrade fx was in decline, Buffett decided to shift gears. By the late 1960s Buffett had already diversified into banking, insurance and newspaper publishing.
Others rallied because investors expect great things from these companies. Then there are stocks with outstanding fundamentals, snapped up by perceptive investors who’ve done their homework. Famously, Warren Buffett has been a committed long-term investor in the U.S. stock market through his company, Berkshire Hathaway. From 1964 to 2021, his stock market investment choices have returned an astonishing 3,641,613%. By buying this kind of index fund, you’ll get the weighted average of all the holdings, and you’ll outperform most investors, even the pros, over time. Suffice to say, VFC’s streak of annual payout hikes, which stretches back to 1973 and has added several percentage points to its annualized total returns, appears safe.
SEE ALSO: Best Stocks in Silicon Valley
Much of the company’s growth over the years has been fueled through acquisitions. Most recently, in August 2018, Tyson announced a $2.2 billion acquisition of Keystone Foods, a supplier of protein to the fast-food industry. Indeed, it counts McDonald’s (MCD) as a customer for its chicken nuggets. Equifax bdswiss review (EFX, $94.25) one of the Big Three consumer credit reporting agencies along with Experian (EXPGY) and TransUnion (TRU), has mostly been in the news recently for the wrong reasons. In 2017, the company disclosed that hackers gained access to the personal data of nearly 146 million consumers.
A handful of blue-chip tickers defied the bigger bearish tide last month, but that doesn’t necessarily make these stocks a buy.
The multinational company can trace its corporate roots to 1929, when it was part of United Aircraft and Transport, a Dow component starting in 1930. The corporate name changed to United Technologies in 1975 to reflect the diversification of its business beyond aerospace. From 1928 to 2021, treasury bonds rose in 76 of those years while introduction to computer science and programming using python stocks rose in 69. This reflects the short-term volatility the stock market experiences despite rewarding investors with higher returns than the bond market over the long term. S&P Dow Jones Indices recently published a list of the 25 stocks in Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index that generated the best returns over the past 50 years.
The Performance Pages allow you to select from a number of time frames using the drop-down list on the table’s toolbar. The Performance for “Today” uses the current session’s intraday data, with the list being updated every 10 minutes throughout the trading day. However, new stocks are not automatically added to or re-ranked on the page until the site performs its 10-minute update. Berkshire Hathaway’s 50-year annualized total return of nearly 20% is pretty persuasive evidence that Buffett has been right not to pay dividends all these years.
Long-Term Returns From Stocks
Shareholders can thank Disney’s adaptability to an ever-changing media landscape for their outsized returns. In the past 20 years alone, Disney has gobbled up Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm (of Star Wars fame) and much of 21st Century Fox. ESPN and the Disney Channel are just two of its many cable properties. The company’s Disney Plus streaming platform debuted as a smashing success. And let’s not forget to mention Disney’s theme parks, which remain global attractions. The tech titan sold close to 218 million iPhones last fiscal year.
Ranks stocks by the highest and lowest Percent Change (the percentage difference between the current price and the previous close). These pages can help you identify the stocks with the most price movement from the close of the market yesterday. Need any more proof that Warren Buffett is the greatest long-term investor of all time? Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B, $195.20), of which he is chairman and CEO, tops the list of the best S&P 500 stocks of the past 50 years, and it is the only one that does not pay a dividend. Like so many other names on this list, Lowe’s has been raising its dividend annually for a loooong time.
Wall Street typically ranks HD as one of its favorite Dow stocks, with analysts expecting even more outperformance in the years ahead. As great a wealth creator as HD has been, the bulk of its outperformance has come in only the past decade or so. And analysts, hedge funds, billionaires and even Warren Buffett single out Mastercard (MA) in particular as one of their favorite stocks to buy.
Aflac, whose roots go back to 1955, has a number of workplace offerings, such as accident, short-term disability and life insurance. But what makes AFL exciting to long-term income investors is the fact that it has raised its payout every year for more than three decades. That sort of flexibility, and rising dividends, have been key to its market-beating returns over the long haul. Analysts polled by Zacks remain bullish on the name in the shorter term too. Analysts expect average annual earnings growth of 13.5% for the next five years, according to data from Thomson Reuters. In November, VFC announced a quarterly dividend increased of 11% to 51 cents a share.
With 30 consecutive years of annual growth in its cash payouts to shareholders, Chevron’s track record instills confidence that the dividend will continue to rise well into the future. Chevron’s origins as a company date back to the 19th century and run through John D. Rockefeller’s legendary oil empire. Chevron operated for decades as Standard Oil of California, though the Chevron brand was used on products as far back as the 1930s. The corporate name didn’t officially change to Chevron Corp. until 2005. No doubt the reliable dividend that Exxon has paid out to shareholders since 1882 has contributed mightily to the energy giant’s remarkable performance. Over the last 35 years alone, amid cycles of oil booms and oil busts, the company has increased its dividend payment at an average annual rate of 6.3%.
Tractor Supply has grown its net sales more than tenfold in less than 20 years, from $759 million in 2000 to to $7.9 billion in 2018. It also boosted its net income from $16 million to about $532 million over the same period. Equinix has grown from revenues of $13 million in 2000 to $5.1 billion last year, and transformed a net loss of $120 million into net income of $365 million over the same period. Intuitive has grown its sales from about $27 million in 2000 to $3.7 billion last year, and swung from a net loss of around $19 million to $1.1 billion in net income over the same period. Ansys has grown its revenues from about $74 million in 2000 to $1.3 billion in revenue last year, and net income from $16 million to $419 million over the same period.
Berkshire Hathaway
Unique to Barchart.com, data tables contain an option that allows you to see more data for the symbol without leaving the page. Click the “+” icon in the first column (on the left) to view more data for the selected symbol. Scroll through widgets of the different content available for the symbol. The “More Data” widgets are also available from the Links column of the right side of the data table. Performance Leaders pages spotlight stocks that show significant movement in regards to their Percent Change, Price Change, Range Change, or Gap change.
Walt Disney has adapted to the changing landscape in the entertainment industry by making significant acquisitions in the last few decades. It now also provides online content, which could sustain its revenue going forward. While its income looks relatively moderate, they have a healthy balance sheet that helps the profits they give out in dividends.